Getting into PDF seller dungeon tiles

[Siran Dunmorgan]

I have pretty much the entire Fat Dragon "Dragon Tiles" line, and a fair number of E-Z Dungeons and E-Z Terrain lines. I've also got some of the Vyllage-on-the-Cheep sets, the WorldWorks Arena, and the Papermodel Civilizations desert sets.

So far, probably not too different from what the rest of you have done or are planning to do.

However, there are some additional tricks. For example, one of my kids had an art project for school where she was supposed to make a ceremonial gateway, similar to the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.

Rather than starting from a shoebox, as recommended in her school assignment, we used the gate, towers, and wall models from the WorldWorks ArenaWorks set.

We printed them to 'flat' PDF with PDFCreator—Inkscape won't read the embedded images directly in the WorldWorks PDFs—then modified the designs and textures in Inkscape, adding vines, leaves and cracks to create an 'older' look, and adding bas-relief animal designs and inscriptions along the walls.

After the edits, we printed the models, built them, and had a completely customized ceremonial gate that was something of the belle of the ball among the modified shoe- and cereal boxes that were turned in by the rest of her class.

I've used this technique—editing in Inkscape—to modify several tiles, e.g. putting a tan-colored wash over a set when it's supposed to be a sandy floor rather than rock, or adding images for light sources, magical effects, and whatnot. I have a swamp built from Fat Dragon's E-Z Terrain Forest & Ruins set, for example, adding more water features, darkening the overall texture, and adding a few hanging vines from strips of paper.

Cardstock models have really helped to encourage my kids to participate in building out the environments and then play in them. I strongly encourage this aspect of the hobby.

—Siran Dunmorgan

Links:

PDFCreator – Free program to allow any program (including Acrobat Reader) to print to PDF.

Inkscape – Free vector graphics program that can import and edit single pages of PDF files.

 

[alleynbard]

Some generic 2D tiles that I have drawn myself are available on this page of my website:
PDF Dungeon Tiles

...but there is other stuff out there.

Those are some nice tiles. Very nice indeed.



I am also a huge fan of Empty Room Studios. They have two basic dungeons and a few themed locations as well. Good stuff.

Empty Room Studios

 

[nnms]

I like some of the tiles at dungeoneering.net as well.

I split up maps into standard page sizes, print them out at the least expensive local place that has a color printer (currently the UPS Store does $0.35 per full color page), glue stick the pages to an appropriately size piece of foam board, then cover it all with lamination sheets to preserve and protect and allow me to use wet erase markers on them. The back can be scored in places to allow them to fold up well enough. The overall cost of materials is between $5 and $10 US.

Here's some photos of a couple of these I did for a Free RPG Day with Paizo maps (that I even had to scan and enlarge to make it happen) -

06-2008 Free RPG Day - a set on Flickr

Awesome!! I'm going to do something like this. Though instead of foam core, I'm going to use my beloved vinyl tiles. Foam core is probably better, but the tiles are nice and cheap.

Might I ask you a bit about your process.

I've got a map I want to do this with. A big jpeg. What's the best way to carve it up into 8x10 or so chunks? Or did you just scan it in those chunks and crop them as you did it? Should I just open the big jpeg in an image editing program and crab a 8x10 chunk, paste it into a new file and crop the edges exactly how I want them?

While I have played with images for the purposes of putting them in a brochure or on a website, I've never tried to make a multipage image all fit together perfectly.

Any suggestions?

 

[Mark]

Well, you do have to resize it but if you raise the pixel level before you do so, it helps keep the image looking pretty good. Also, scan it with as high a quality as you can set the scanner to. After that, just be sure to keep the main map as a master, then use the selection tool to grab, perhaps, eight by ten inch chunks using the grid on the map itself. You can paste these into a PDF program or in Word or whatever you have just to keep them the right size and make printing them a bit easier (that's what I like to do, anyway), because it is easy to note that you have a quarter inch on each side of the image and a half inch above and below on the page. It also help to print out a small version of the map (it only needs to be in B&W) that you can mark up to help keep track of the individual sections and where you will make your selections. You might want to jot down the percentages you use as you resize things so that the process can gain some speed. I think that is about it. It'll be trial and error as you work with the process. Post here with your results and any additional tips.

 

[nnms]

I think that is about it. It'll be trial and error as you work with the process. Post here with your results and any additional tips.

Okay, here's my quick and dirty solution. It uses all free software.

1. Open Openoffice.org (Microsoft Word would work fine too)
2. Change the paper size to the desired final map size (eg. 32x21 inches)
3. Also set it to have no margins
4. Paste in the super high resolution scan
5. Double check that the big picture is the right size
6. Print to PDFCreator (free/open source PDF maker)
7. Open PDF file in Acrobat Reader
8. Go to Toos>Select & Zoom>Snapshot tool
9. Select an appropriate amount of the file (say, 8 squares by 10 squares) with a little bit extra around the edges to leave room to trim)
10. Go to File>Print
11. Print to PDFCreator
12. Now I have a PDF of one 8x10 section
13. Repeat until the rest of the map is covered and you have a separate PDF file for each page.
14. Print them
15. Trim
16. Mount

Links:

OpenOffice.org (free/open source office suite)
OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

PDFCreator (free/open source PDF maker)
SourceForge.net: PDFCreator

Adobe Acrobat Reader (free, but not open source PDF reader)
Adobe - Adobe Reader download - All versions

My digital camera is traveling with a friend right now, but I'll get some pictures done at my next gaming session.

 

[jdrakeh]

Thanks for the tips, guys! I just found a local print shop and got some stuff for $.30/page! And they had heavier paper than Kinkos/Office Max! Also, since we were talking about it, I asked . . . they can print up to 15x19in pages. In color, one page that size would be $.55! I forgot to ask if they could then laminate that page, but I'm pretty excited about everything after getting gouged at the previous stores I went to.

~

Glad that worked out for you! I learned this a while back and it saved me hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars over the years.

 

[Nebulous]

I've been using 0one 2D tiles and Skeleton Key for years, mixing them up on a dry erase battlemap, and mixing them with other 2D maps i've found online. I also like to use dungeon tiles from the Descent boardgame and the occasional WotC dungeon tile. I recently bought Fat Dragon's EX Dungeon and i've been tinkering with that. I have a ton of wall sections and props printed, but i haven't gotten around to making anything except for one door. I also bought some WorldWorks tiles and printed them, but they're not constructed yet.

For me, it's a time consumption thing, and i don't think i particularly ENJOY gluing walls together, that's another problem. And i also don't have any help for such a large project, that would also help.

I think i'll hit Michael's up for some glue though, i need to do that, and some foam core. I think my ideal dungeon is a mix of 2D/3D; high walls have a tendancy to obscure what players can see, especially given the shape of my battleboard and game room.

Oh, and i've also been buying real 3D terrain here and there for a while now; barrels, crates, trees, rocks, etc. That alone can get expensive, but the stuff is resin cast and extremely durable. I've also had some success in Pet Stores buying fish tank accessories on sale, such as ruined towers and walls.

 

[Zaukrie]

Good point on other 3D terrain. Try going to a huge "garage sale" sometime and finding the kids toy area. Barrels, hay stacks, broken walls, whatever you can find.

The heroscapers site has a custom terrain thread with lots of tutorials and ideas, if you move to also building terrain (and usually advice on finding terrain in places you wouldn't expect, like columns in bridal outlet stores - cake decorations!).

 

[Mark]

Okay, here's my quick and dirty solution. It uses all free software.

Good tips. Thanks.

 

[Denny]

In a terrible act of thread necromancy...I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions about WorldWorksGames products that are floating around in here.

Complexity: As a few have pointed out, some of our sets are in the "intermediate" range but its important to note that this isn't generally true of our overall catalog. Its just that we have such a wide range of terrain sets that they do tend to bounce around between beginner and intermediate levels (depending on what they are and how they function). Bread and butter terrain sets (Dungeons, Caves) are generally pretty easy to build. Most modelsets we offer are beginner level friendly.

Pricepoint: Indeed, our prices are marginally higher than some of our competitors but there are two key reasons for that. The biggest defining factor here is the sheer number of items contained in larger terrain sets. It isn't just tiles & walls but a dense compilation of props and related dressings. Just take a cruise through product descriptions and you'll get a sense of what's included. The other big X-factor here is development. A typical terrain setting is a full-time, 3 month investment, to infuse each set with an almost obsessive level of detail. Each texture is built from scratch and there are many situations where more than one person is involved with production. That said, we do recognize that some people want more of a smorgasbord, pick & choose purchase option (we're working on that one ).

Modularity Standards: You generally see many different modularity standards in our catalog. That's a consequence of being in the market for nearly 8 years and breaking new ground each consecutive year. This isn't to brag but to point out the reasons we have so much diversity in our catalog. Overall though, dimensionally, everything is compatible with everything else. In fact most of our products offer both 1" and 1.5" compatibility. We've definitely tapered off in the last few years though to a more consistent build standard. And we aren't done breaking new ground yet

If you're looking for a good place to start I would recommend the following:

For 2-D tile lovers DungeonLinX is the set to get your feet wet. There's much more than meets the eye here and it has good generic versatility:




For basic 3-D hack and slash dungeoneering Chunky Dungeons 1" is a no brainer. Beyond the basic walls and corridor sections, it's absolutely stuffed to the gills with props and other goodies.



And don't forget to swing by and pick up our free "Beginners Guide to Cardstock Modeling":



I leave it there for now but we have over 55 unique terrain settings covering Fantasy, Modern, Horror and Sci-Fi in our current catalog that I would encourage you to explore at www.worldworksgames.com (or more recently at RPGNow). If you have any specific questions or concerns you can tap into our community forums or speak directly to designers and get involved with the process at: WorldWorksGames :: Index

Thanks for listening

-Denny